It may also be relevant to mention a related feature of SBL style:
(3) The "et al." string is used for more than three authors for in-text citations, but all authors are listed in full in the list of publications.

In publ-imp-chicago.mkvi (probably the most similar style to SBL), the etallimit and etaldisplay parameters are set to the default values:

\definebtx
[chicago:\s!list]
[chicago]
%[\c!otherstext={\btxcomma\btxnobreakspace\textellipsis\space},
% \c!etallimit=7,
% \c!etaldisplay=6,
% \c!etaloption=last,
[\c!authorconversion=inverted]

But the definition for in-text citations sets both of these parameters to 1:

\definebtx
[chicago:\s!cite]
[chicago]
[\c!alternative=authoryear,
\c!otherstext={\btxcomma\btxlabeltext{others}},
\c!etallimit=1,
\c!etaldisplay=1,
\c!authorconversion=\v!name,
\c!sorttype=normal, % \v!normal ?
\c!style=,
\c!compress=\v!yes] % note that cite sorts only work with compress=yes.

Now, if I cite a source in-text using the "author" alternative, this rule is applied, but if I cite a source in-text using the "entry" alternative, the printed citation follows the rules for [chicago:\s!list], even though the citation style for the "entry" alternative is explicitly defined to inherit from [chicago:\s!cite]:

\definebtx
[chicago:\s!cite:entry]
[chicago:\s!cite]
[\c!left=,
\c!right=,
\c!inbetween={\btxspace},
\c!separator:2={\btxsemicolon},
\c!separator:3=\btxparameter{\c!separator:2},
\c!separator:4=\btxparameter{\c!separator:2}]

Is the "entry" alternative just hardcoded to match the list citation, or am I missing something?

Joey

On Tue, Aug 10, 2021 at 2:12 PM Joey McCollum <jmccollum20140511@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi,

I'm currently working on implementing a new citation rendering for SBL style. One of the challenges of this style is that it specifies slightly different rules for citations in the text (which are generally expected to look like citations made with the "entry" alternative) and entries in the final list of publications. The two most common differences are
(1) Authors in the in-text citation are printed in normal form (i.e., first name followed by last name), while authors in the list citation are printed in inverted for for the first author and normal form for all subsequent authors.
(2) Most fields in the in-text citation are separated by commas, while the list citation uses periods in these places.

Is there already a mechanism for handling this for another citation style? And if not, could anyone offer a suggestion on how I might go about implementing separate rules for in-text citations and list citations?

Thanks!

Joey